Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

“Do you have any other ideas? It’s getting late.”
“Can’t we use the downtrodden team again?”
“Nah, a three-episode arc is enough. Besides, the idea that you’d need to eke out one-run wins in consecutive episodes, the second of them in extra innings while the ancestors of the downtrodden team that beat the ancestors of the visiting heroes are watching stretched credulity enough.”
“But it worked.”
“The audiences won’t watch the same thing again and again.”
“Hmm…oh, here’s something…”

“What, whaddaya got?”
“The visiting heroes leave the downtrodden setting of the downtrodden team and go to a TOTALLY different place, a place where everything is sparkling and gleaming — not a possum in sight — and instead of expecting to get beat, they expect to beat you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And, um…”
“What? We’re gonna need more than ‘um…’”
“OK, the haughty, privileged, high-expectations team where it’s sparkling and gleaming is led by a villain.”
“What kind of villain?”
“A redheaded villian! Fiery red hair! Unstoppable is the word on the street.”
“What’s so villainous about him?”
“He’s really good at what he does.”
“That’s villainous?”
“The viewers will think so.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s set to do it to the visiting heroes.”

“So what do the visiting heroes do about it?”
“They…um…they succeed!”
“Isn’t that kind of predictable?”
“How is it predictable? He’s really good at what he does and they overcome him!”
“Yeah, but that’s how every episode plays out lately. Aren’t the viewers coming to expect that?”
“Research shows our viewers generally expect the worst.”
“Even when they played the downtrodden team?”
“ESPECIALLY when they played the downtrodden team.”

“Wait, aren’t the visiting heroes kind of high-expectations themselves?”
“What’s your point?”
“If the people watching think our protagonists should win all the time, how is it they bought the tension between the visiting heroes and the downtrodden team?”
“Because, according to the research, the viewers wholeheartedly believe two things at once: that the visiting heroes should never lose, and that the visiting heroes will inevitably find a way to lose.”
“That’s utterly illogical.”
“Go argue with the research.”

After a while, you just hope these plots are believable.

“We’re getting off track here. Let’s get back to this idea for the next episode. The visiting heroes are taking on the red-headed villain who’s unstoppable at the head of this haughty team the viewers don’t like. What happens besides the visiting heroes ultimately come out on top? How do we get where we need to go?”
“With a home run!”
“We’ve already done home runs. We did home runs coming out our ears in the previous arc. How many times can we go to the Polar Bear well? Seriously, if we keep leaning on the Polar Bear character, the actor’s going to want a huge raise.”
“We go with one of the characters who hasn’t had much to do yet this season.”
“Who?”
“Um…the barrel-chested hitter.”

“‘Barrel-chested’? Is that what we’re calling him now?”
“We ran it by legal and we’re OK with barrel-chested.”
“Fine. What does the barrel-chested hitter do?”
“He homers!”
“Yeah, but there’s gotta be more, some motivation, some other action.”
“The barrel-chested hitter has been walking mostly.”
“Is he panting?”
“That’s funny. Maybe we’ll use that in a later episode if he has to run. No, he just walks a lot. Walks the earth in search of knowledge, higher purpose, whatever. But this time he swings. He swings and he homers…and then, because he’s seeing the redemptive power of swinging, he swings again, and he grounds to the right side for a productive out.”
“That’s entertaining?”
“That’s effective!”

“How effective?”
“The lead goes back and forth. The unstoppable redhead isn’t as unstoppable as he’s made out to be. The swinging and the hitting is getting to him.”
“So it’s a romp?”
“No, I told you — back and forth. Remember, this is a high-expectations outfit. They’re dangerous because they’re supposed to be THAT good.”
“So the visiting heroes are in peril?”
“Yes. And their own gunslinger needs help.”
“What kind of help?”
“Bullpen help!”

“This again? We resort to the bullpen help trope by the third act in every episode.”
“Research shows the viewers buy it.”
“Who comes out of the bullpen to save the day?”
“Does it matter? They’re kind of interchangeable after a while.”
“I know, but the casting director says we can’t use the same actors every day. Try to mix them up a little. Union rules specify they can be trotted out for only so many scenes in a given shoot.”
“Not a problem. We’ll find something for the lefty to do, then the guy who everybody forgets about, then the grizzled veteran.”
“Which grizzled veteran? We have a couple of them.”
“Whichever one we didn’t use in the previous episode.”
“This was a lot easier when we had the one closer. Those climaxes wrote themselves Scored themselves, too.”
“Too bad the studio lent him out for that limited series between seasons.”

“I think we could use a strong ‘B’ story as well.”
“How about this — we set the entire showdown, all the pitching, all the hitting, all the expectations and anxieties late at night.”
“How late? It’s gotta be believable.”
“Not late where it’s going on, but late where the people who care about it most are trying to follow it.”
“What happens with them?”
“Well, as the visiting heroes are fighting off the high-expectations outfit, the folks back home are fighting off sleep. It’s a daunting battle, seemingly a losing battle, but then…”
“Yeah?”
“Um…they wake up, just in time to see the final out!”
“That’s how it ends?”
“Well, there’s a postgame show if they can stay awake just a little longer.”
“Ah, we’ll figure it out. Before I forget, insert another stunt catch in the last showdown if you think of it. Viewers seem to like those.”
“Stunt catch. Check.”
“And a fair-haired rookie type. Viewers can’t get enough of those.”
“Fair-haired rookie type. Check.”
“All in all, I think we have a satisfying episode for the time slot they gave us.”
“Fantastic. ’Cause we have a whole lot more of these to churn out before this week is over.”